It Takes a Village

It’s not hard to see why so many TV writers decide to set their stories in little towns or villages. (The latest example, Cinemax’s Banshee has, as one its producers, Alan Ball, who has explored small-town secrets in his own True Blood.) Such locales offer a rich vein of storytelling possibilities. They’re a great way to introduce a cast of lovable but oddball characters. Or, reflecting more ambitious goals, they can be stages on which are presented insightful debates on big issues.

This list covers a broad range of our favorite fictional TV towns—and begins with a much-loved show that began as a mid-summer “replacement series” in July of 1990…

Was Walton's Mountain, VA too small to be included on this list? The house (it always seemed as the family was about the only one with a radio, so everyone came by) the school, Godsey's store, the baptist church, and the Appalachian Mountains were all points of interest. And the show was on longer than most of those listed in this article.

@WJK1@VanAnderson Ahh, I think it's probably that there was an apostrophe-s added for the show's production. So "Roslyn Cafe" was "Roslyn's Cafe" in Cicely. The mural has been restored to its pre- Northern Exposure state, so that apostrophe-s was, in fact, painted over.